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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoBernandino Hernandez | Associated Press photosA detained man is brought to face a community assembly in the town of El Mezon, Mexico. “The people are fed up,” said a 45-year-old farmhand. “Our government doesn’t back us, so we decided to try to clear away all the bad people.”

By Simon GardnerREUTERS • Saturday February 2, 2013 6:20 AM

EL MEZON, Mexico — Wielding machetes and rusty shotguns, a motley crew in masks escorts dozens
of captives onto a basketball court to face a public “trial” for suspected ties to criminal
gangs.

This is Wild West justice, Mexican-style.

Outraged at relentless extortion, kidnapping and theft as a wave of drug-related violence washes
over Mexico, farmers, shopkeepers and other residents in the mountainous southern state of Guerrero
are taking the law into their own hands as “community police.”

Both state and federal police as well as the military leave them to their own devices, manning
checkpoints at entries to towns but venturing no farther.

T-shirts pulled over their faces with holes cut for the eyes and nose, dozens of gunmen on
Thursday flanked the tiny square in the hamlet of El Mezon, where more than 50 prisoners were
paraded in public and accused of crimes from murder to rape to theft. No real evidence against them
was presented.

Many Mexicans have little faith in police forces or the justice system. In this corner of the
country, they are taking on the job themselves.

One of the gunmen watching over the alleged criminals on Thursday wore a Mexican
lucha libre wrestler’s mask, another a Spider-Man hood and a shotgun slung over his
back.

They paraded the accused in groups of five in front of hundreds of onlookers. A collective gasp
rose when one man was accused of murder by dismembering, a common trademark of gruesome gangland
killings. He stared back at the crowd with an impassive smile.

Some local leaders gave testimony about how they themselves had been kidnapped by the accused.
Sentencing will come later, organizers say.

“This is a violation of human rights. They are violating people’s right to freedom,” said Oscar
Ortiz, a law professor based in Acapulco. “We are victims of extortion, of injustice. We have been
abused,” said Bruno Placido Valerio, who coordinates community police groups in 20 towns and
villages — a total of about 240 gunmen.

“The people are indignant at so much abuse,” he said. “But we are not seeking anarchy or aiming
to take justice into our own hands, but rather find a way out from the problem we are living
with."

His eyes peering out from behind a black ski-mask and clutching an aging .22-caliber rifle, a
man who goes by the nickname
El Ciclon, or
The Cyclone, kept watch over residents of nearby communities attending the start of
Thursday’s “trial.”

He and others covered their faces to remain anonymous and avoid reprisals from friends of the
captives, or from government authorities.

“The people are fed up,” the 45-year-old farmhand said. “Our government doesn’t back us, so we
decided to try to clear away all the bad people. We have to get rid of these animals.”

Some are demanding an eye for an eye.

“They must be punished in line with the crime,” said Odila Gonzalez Rios, who oversees community
policing in the settlement of Copala, near the Pacific coast. “If they have raped, then they should
be raped to see how it feels.

“If they have killed? The same. … They must die, because otherwise this will never end,” she
said. “Do to them what they have done to others.”